Chinese women leave Danish female entrepreneurs standing

China is roaring ahead these years. In 1990, 17 per cent of all entrepreneurs were women. In 2013, the number went up to 25. Denmark reached 25 per cent in 2001. And this number has been the same ever since. Denmark has been overtaken by Nordic and European countries - and now China.
Serden Ozcan is a researcher in innovation and entrepreneurship at CBS and was recently visited by 23 Chinese women, who came to talk about development programmes in China, which have given them the impetus to start their own business.

- These programmes have focused on developing the potential of the women. The female entrepreneurs in China contribute to growth, they innovate and they spread over more industries than Danish women. The number of female entrepreneurs in Denmark is way too low. In China, there are incubator environments and micro-loans only for women. These possibilities are non-existing in Denmark. The first step is to focus on the potential of the women, says Serden Ozcan, who is Director of CBS' new entrepreneurship platform.

Entrepreneurship creates growth
The Danish women are lagging behind the rest of Europe - Sweden and Holland in particular. Every time a Danish woman starts a new business, 2.7 Dutch women do the same. In Sweden, it is 1.55.
- Entrepreneurship creates growth. There are too few entrepreneurs in Denmark - especially of the female kind. Women are capable of being entrepreneurs and should become entrepreneurs. It will contribute to income equality and generate growth. Needless to say that women should contribute to the economy by creating more jobs than being employees. Women are better at thinking in social terms and solve social problems. This is popular within entrepreneurship, says Serden Ozcan.

Chinese help for business plan
The women who visited CBS, came from the region Hangzhou, which the Chinese people call Paradise Silicon Valley. It is the home of the university Zhejiang, which is one of the places where entrepreneurial women can get help for business plans and networking. Dai Yana, 31, has really benefitted from these efforts:

- Actually, I had already started my company before the financial crisis emerged, but it was hard making ends meet. So I got help and sparring through this programme. We discovered that I was able to develop products. My company was based on solar power, but I had some ideas from former employment in the agricultural sector. My company has now specialised in developing solar energy for warming up water for agriculture. Pigs benefit from warm water. We have discovered that it makes production easier. They get bigger and death rates decline, says Dai Yana.

Please contact Serden Ozcan at soz.ino@cbs.dk for further information about the collaboration with China and the CBS Entrepreneurship Platform, or Ea Ørum, Journalist, on ea.ea@cbs.dk, tel. +45 3815 2041